of Birds from Port Denison. 329 
They are often composed of stringy-bark alone, at other times 
with grass, fibrous rootlets, and the like. These birds may be 
ranked among our sweetest and most lively songsters. C. can - 
tillans is a perfect ventriloquist; and I have been frequently 
misled by fancying the bird was flying towards me, and at least 
a hundred yards or more away, when to my surprise one day I 
discovered it perched upon a bough only a few feet above my 
head. Its note is a continued and varied song, which it com¬ 
mences in a very low tone, seeming to be a considerable distance 
off, then getting louder and louder till it reaches an almost deaf¬ 
ening pitch, when it suddenly stops with a loud sharp “ crack 
something like the abrupt note of Pachycephala rufiventris and 
Psophodes crepitans. After twittering a few notes in an under 
tone, it again commences its song, with which it also favours us 
as it flies to and fro over the fields. It seldom mounts in the 
air to any distance, but chiefly flies backwards and forwards over 
the ground at an elevation of about twenty or thirty feet. Its 
power of ventriloquism is truly wonderful and most perfect. 
When first I discovered it l could hardly believe my eyes; but 
when it repeated its song several times w r hile I was standing 
beneath the bough on which it was perched, and closely w r atching 
it, being only a few feet from the bird itself, I left without any 
doubt whatever upon the subject, and only wondered why I had 
not observed it before. Its song being the same, except the ven¬ 
triloquism, as when it is flying, one is not so likely to notice it. 
70. Stictoptera bichenoyii (Vigors and Horsfield). H.B.A. 
i. p. 409. 
71. .ZEgintha temporalis (Latham). H. B. A. i. p. 411. 
72. .ZEdemosyne modesta, Gould. H. B. A. i. p. 414. 
73. Poephila cincta, Gould. H. B. A. i. p. 425. 
All these four species are at times plentiful. 
74. Chlamydodera maculata, Gould. H.B.A. i. p.450. 
Neither this bird nor C. nuchalis (Ibis, 1865, p. 85) are by ' 
any means rare. Of C. nuchalis Mr. Rainbird forwarded me a 
living example, which he states he had in confinement for up¬ 
wards of five months. It feeds freely upon bread soaked in 
